Jonathan Gracza

All statistics that Hedrick uses are true, but they do not support his conclusion "all the comments being made by Republicans about how much the government has spent over the last four years are great big falsehoods."

Yes, it is true that Barack Obama had the lowest growth in spending since President Dwight Eisenhower. However, Hedrick uses this statistic to say that Obama is not spending more than his predecessors, but less.

The problem with this statement is that 1.4 percent growth in spending in today's economy is a much larger sum compared to the same percentage of growth in Eisenhower's time because the government spending was less to begin with.

Obama isn't a big spender because the growth in spending is increasing, but because of the base numbers, the actual amounts that are being spent.

According to an article on Factcheck.org titled "Obama's Spending: 'Inferno' or not?" the budget was $2.98 trillion in 2008. It jumped to $3.52 trillion in 2009, and has stayed at roughly the same amount ever since.

That is an added $0.5 trillion each year, which means that the government will have spent approximately $2 trillion more during this presidency than the previous one.

Obama has not reduced the spending, and the numbers show that the government is spending more now than it ever has.